although The is in its official name, use lowercase roman type for “the”; see CMS 8.168

capital, capitol

a capital is a city that is the seat of government or known for its eminence in a particular field (fashion capital); a capitol is a building where a legislature meets; lowercase capitol when referring generically to Wisconsin’s state capitol building, but the building in Washington, DC, is the Capitol

capitalization

avoid unnecessary capital letters: use them only when one of the principles listed in this guide, the dictionary, or the Chicago Manual of Style justifies their usage.
In particular, the following should be capitalized:
– Proper nouns for people, places, or things: Allison, Atlanta, the Alamo
– Proper names: when they are an official part of the full name of a person, place, or thing: Democratic Party, Lake Mendota, Park Street, Charles River, West Virginia, College of Letters & Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Lowercase when these stand alone in subsequent or generic references: the party, the lake, the street, the river, the state, the college, the university. Per CMS 8.53 and 8.56, uppercase these words in plural usages: the Democratic and Republican Parties, Langdon and State Streets.

captions

in On Wisconsin and Badger Insider, do not use graduation years in photo captions unless the individuals’ names do not appear elsewhere in a story; if one or some people are mentioned in an article that accompanies the photo, and one or others are not, use graduation years for all of the people listed in the photo caption; do not use boldface with names and graduation years in captions; see also photo references/identification.

use this list to determine whether to include a state or country name after the city name; if it’s on this list, the city name may stand alone

International cities:

Barcelona, Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo; but do use the country with Seoul, South Korea

U.S. cities:

Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Green Bay, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Madison (except if it’s Madison in a state other than Wisconsin), Manhattan Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans, New York City (when identified this way, but not just New York for the city), Omaha, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, Twin Cities, and Tucson; but do use the state with Kansas City (Missouri or Kansas); Portland (Oregon or Maine); and St. Louis (Missouri)

in a series of three or more elements, use a serial comma; for Inside UW–Madison and news communications and institutional websites maintained by University Communications, do not use a serial comma

commencement

lowercase for generic references to the ceremony; uppercase can be used in the official titles of events

communication arts

lowercase

compare with, compare to

per CMS 5.220, compare with means to discern both similarities and differences; compare to notes primarily similarities

comprehensive campaign

use lowercase to refer to this multiyear campaign with campus audiences when not using its proper name; refer to it only by its proper name to noncampus audiences; use campaign on second reference; the proper name of the fourth comprehensive campaign in university history, going on now, is All Ways Forward, which uses initial caps, roman type, and no quotation marks.

comprise

to include or contain (the whole comprises the parts): Wisconsin comprises 72 counties; it is synonymous with composed of: Wisconsin is composed of 72 counties; comprised of is incorrect

Congress

uppercase when referring to the U.S. Congress (or just Congress), which comprises the Senate and the House of Representatives; see also CMS 8.61

couple

words that stand for a group of things can mean the group as a whole (and thus take a singular verb) or the individual members of the group (and thus, a plural verb); the presence of the before the word often indicates that it’s singular: The couple lives in apartment 9A; when a comes before the word, and especially when of comes after it, it’s probably plural: A couple of professors live in apartment 9A

use the department abbreviation (or full name) with a space separating the department, the course number, and the course name: Poli Sci 377 Nuclear Weapons and World Politics; department abbreviations appear in the Course Guide; when referring to courses without including the number, do not use quotation marks: Physical Systems of the Environment, Solid State Physics.

coursework

one word

court cases

italicize the names of legal cases, including the abbreviation v. (for versus): Bloomfield Village Drain Dist. v. Keefe, Miranda v. Arizona; a case name may be shortened in subsequent discussion: the Miranda case or simply Miranda; see also versus and CMS 8.82

courtesy titles

in general, do not use Dr., Mrs., Mr., or Ms; a written-out courtesy title that helps to put a person’s role in context (President Kennedy, Chancellor Blank, Dean Scholz, Professor Jenkins) may be used on first reference.

credits

when clustered or in a tabular format, use numerals: 3 credits, a 4-credit course, 1 credit hour; when including the number of credits in a list of courses, use the abbreviation cr with no period: Poli Sci 377 Nuclear Weapons and World Politics, 3 cr; Music 231 Elementary/Intermediate Violin, 2–4 cr.; in running text, spell out credits: All students must take 3 credits in art history; for additional examples, see the academic catalogs

crew

crew team is redundant; it’s crew, the crew, or the team; see also teams